- Ehhh...shipping? (It took a while, but then again APM is in Canada...)

Review:

When Flamin'Skull first posted on the Kingman forums about a new bolt he was developing, I was skeptical. However, since he took input directly from us in the design of the bolt, I decided to plunk down the $11 he wanted for it. Boy, am I glad I did!

First off, the customer service was great. Flamin'Skull helped me to place my money order (I had no credit card...), and promptly informed me as soon as he received it. The package the bolt arrived in was very well protected, with the bolt having no damage upon delivery. When I first installed the Tigershark into my Avant, I immediately noticed something: All the side-slack and rattling I was used to from my stock bolt was gone! In short, the bolt fit perfectly into the chamber. I was already impressed, and I hadn't even gassed up my marker yet!

When I dry-fired my marker a few times (to make sure that the new bolt worked), yet another amazing realization struck me. As I was looking at the feed-neck, I noticed that there was not the usual "puff" of CO2 that was oh-so-often released when I would shoot. Just to check, I stuck the back of my hand over the feed-neck, and felt absolutely no air at all when I would shoot. The perfect fit of the Tigershark in my chamber also had the strange little side-effect of drastically reducing my blow-back. Also, as I would shoot my Avant, I noticed that the kick-back was slightly reduced, due to the fact that the Tigershark weighs much less than the stock bolt.

One of the key strengths (besides the perfect fit and all that) of this bolt is the fact that it is made out of nylatron, which, like delrin, is self-lubricating. Unlike delrin, however, nylatron is less prone to swelling. Also, the milling of the bolt as well as the cool "swirling" pattern was a nice feature.

As of yet, I have not tested the bolt with paint. When I do, I'll edit my review and let everyone know how it goes. |8^)

UPDATE:
Well, I finally got to put some paint through my marker with the new bolt installed. As I predicted, blow-back is now a thing of the past. Just to prove it (to myself, mostly), I stuck two paintballs into my feed-neck, and fired off one shot. With the stock bolt, doing this would make the second ball in the feed-neck fly a few feet into the air, but with the Tigershark, the ball didn't even leave the feed-neck! Needless to say, I was most impressed. My second test was to chrono my marker, and see if there was any velocity increase. Upon testing, I noticed a 3-4 FPS increase on average, which, even though that isn't that great, my venturi on the stock bolt I was testing was already removed. Some time ago, when I removed the venturi, I recorded a 9 FPS velocity increase. So, to be fair, this bolt would (on average) give the user a 12-14 FPS velocity increase. Also, while testing, I noticed that the marker was slightly quieter and had a less "metallic" sound to it, due to it's nylatron construction and perfect chamber fit.

UPDATE #2
Well, this bolt swelled up on me. It wasn't anything catastrophic, but I did have to sand it down.

NOTE: APM HAS BEEN INFORMED OF THE SWELLING PROBLEM AND HAS FIXED IT!

In conclusion, I still stand by my recommendation that you order this bolt immediately!

Conclusion:

Most people say that a new bolt will not make that much of a difference. Normally, I would agree, but this bolt is different. Buy it.
For $11 ($15 now...), you can't lose.

However, if you have more money to spend, I would reccomend the ACP Blue Bolt over it, or the White Wolf, since APM seems to have gone out of business.

Just ordered me one of these yesterday, thanks for the review as well as others. This bolt's great price and review rating was the deciding point between the tigershark, the lightning bolt and Spudnuk'l

hey i got a question will this fit in a spyder victor because i am looking to get one and i dont know if i can one that will fit my victor well please tell me if it will fit my spyder by the way can you private message me i dont know how to get to your response so please just message me my email is suicidalpunk69@hotmail.com please dont take offense to my email i couldnt think of anything thx ... bye

i ordered one of these bolts for my x-tra and iti swelled up on me. Then i got an e-99 avant and it fit into it. But in a week or so it swelled back up. so i am going to try and sand it down. I'll get back and let you know how it worked.

Yeah i experienced the same problem too. Is the apmproducts site down? I tried the link from pbreview but it doesn't work. Then i tried googling the site but nothing came up. Well anyways, how much do you have to sand off or is there a way that I can get APM to replace my bolt?

Hmm so I'm not alone. I haven't used my gun in a while and just took it out yesterday to try it out and it was stuck, pulled it out and yep it's swelled too. I let it sit around for about 24 hours and it hasn't changed and now I've started sanding it too....

And yep, looks like the APM Products site closed down =(

It was such a good bolt too! I don't see how it swelled up...but now I'm sanding it down so hopefully it'll work again.